Rising identity complexity: How CISOs can prevent it from becoming an attacker’s roadmap

Identity is now the primary attack vector

Identity and access management (IAM) has shifted from an IT administration task to a frontline security defense. This change is driven by a massive expansion of what constitutes an "identity" in modern enterprise environments.

Twenty years ago, an identity was a human employee with a username and password on a corporate network. Today, identities include contractors, machine accounts, bots, APIs, cloud workloads, and SaaS connectors. These identities are dynamic, with permissions that change, and they sprawl across on-premises directories, multiple cloud platforms, and hundreds of apps.

This explosion has made identity the new perimeter and the primary attack surface. Security teams now face a constant deluge of threats centered on credential misuse.

How attackers exploit identity sprawl

Attackers have pivoted to target identity weaknesses as the easiest path into an organization. Security analysts are often overwhelmed, bouncing between different consoles while attackers use sophisticated methods.

Common attack techniques now include:

• Credential dumping from compromised endpoints.
• MFA fatigue attacks to trick users into approving fraudulent logins.
• Lateral movement across hybrid Active Directory and cloud systems.
• Living-off-the-land (LotL) tactics that abuse legitimate admin tools instead of malware.

The most damaging breaches in recent years stem from these identity failures. The 2024 Snowflake data breach is a prime example, where attackers from the UNC5537 group compromised over 160 customer environments using stolen credentials, leading to the exposure of billions of records from companies like AT&T and Ticketmaster.

IAM's evolution into a security system

The function of IAM has transformed in response to this threat landscape. Its evolution reflects the changing shape of enterprise risk, moving through four distinct eras.

Initially, IAM was an operational utility focused on account provisioning and password policies. Compliance needs then ushered in a proactive era of single sign-on (SSO) and multi-factor authentication (MFA).

As hybrid IT accelerated identity sprawl, a reactive era emerged where IAM data fed security alerts, but investigations often lagged. We are now in the continuous era, where IAM must integrate directly with security operations for real-time threat detection and automated response, a discipline known as identity threat detection and response (ITDR).

Building a threat-aware IAM strategy

For CIOs and CISOs, the priority is reshaping IAM into an active defense discipline. This requires a foundation built on three core pillars: continuous posture assessment, attack path analysis, and automated mitigation.

The first step is to consolidate identities into a single source of truth. Fragmented directories across cloud and on-premises systems create blind spots. Organizations must eliminate duplicate records and assign clear ownership for every human and machine account.

Implement continuous posture assessment

Annual audits are obsolete. Identities and their permissions change daily, introducing constant, invisible risk. A modern program requires continuous assurance.

This means detecting privilege drift and dormant accounts in real time, applying the same scrutiny to service accounts as to human admins, and using behavior analytics to spot anomalies. The goal is to transform posture management from a compliance exercise into a living, real-time picture of risk.

Analyze and map attack paths

Attackers chain small missteps into major breaches. Security teams need visibility into how a compromise would actually unfold across their environment.

This involves mapping relationships between all identities, apps, and systems to identify privilege-escalation pathways. Teams should run simulations to see how attackers could move and maintain a prioritized view of the riskiest accounts based on their potential blast radius.

Integrate identity into security operations

The historical divide between IAM teams and the Security Operations Center (SOC) is a critical weakness. Attackers exploit this gap.

Leaders must ensure IAM is part of the SOC's core workflow. This means streaming identity signals—like privilege changes and attack-path alerts—into SIEM and SOAR systems. It also requires giving SOC analysts the direct authority to disable compromised accounts or revoke tokens, turning identity compromises into actionable security events.

The identity defense imperative

Identity is the connective tissue of the modern enterprise, binding every system, cloud, and workflow. This makes its defense foundational to organizational resilience.

The strategic question for leaders is no longer whether to invest in IAM, but how to operationalize it with the urgency of a defense program. In a perimeter-less world, defending identity with the rigor once reserved for networks is what separates resilient companies from the next headline-making breach.